Tannenbaum

‘Tis the season to be putting up and decorating Christmas trees, or so I am told. Discussions during the last couple of days have revealed that work-place trees are appearing, and that families are enacting plans to fill a corner of their lounge-rooms with genuine pine trees or the rather more seasonal species Arborus plasticii which will then be decorated with lights, baubles, and hand-made decorations dating back to when the now-adult children were in kindergarten.

I, on the other hand, avoid many of the issues associated with this tradition. These issues include

• remembering where the tree was stored after last year’s use,
• worrying about whether or not the decorations were stored in the same place,
• deciding upon a date—not too early and not too late—for marking the “official” start of Christmas,
• finding time to decorate the tree,
• choosing which decorations to use this year,
• deciding how to arrange the decorations in an artistically pleasing fashion,
• packing up the tree after the new year,
• finding a place to store the tree again, preferably with the decorations nearby.

Judging from the reactions of some who have become aware of my cunning strategy for avoiding all this angst, it would seem that my method is at odds with typical approaches to Tannenbaumic tradition. Yet I would argue that it offers many advantages over and above merely avoiding the aforementioned issues, not least of which is that my approach allows me to enjoy the Christmas spirit, as partly symbolised by the tree, for much longer than is conventional.

My tree stays up all year round.

Some accuse me of a lax approach; I say that though this be laziness, yet there is method in’t.

Besides, I don’t turn the lights on until December.